The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to management of link state in virtual links.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Additionally, some embodiments of information handling systems include non-transient, tangible machine-readable media that include executable code that when run by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of methods described herein. Some common forms of machine readable media include, for example, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, RAM, PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a processor or computer is adapted to read.
Today's computer networks and information handling systems are being asked to handle ever increasing amounts of data and network traffic. In order to handle this increasing workload, network infrastructures continue to scale upward by incorporating network links of higher and higher capacity. This allows the networks and information handling systems to handle high-bandwidth applications that support multimedia content, virtualization, cloud computing, and/or the like. Unfortunately, use of high-capacity network links may introduce inefficiencies as not all applications and/or network traffic may be able to effectively utilize the entire bandwidth of the high-capacity network links. This further complicates the management of the high-capacity network links as it is possible for larger numbers of applications to utilize each of the network links.
One potential solution for improved management and utilization of high-capacity network links is by creating virtual partitioning of the network links. In virtual partitioning, the physical network link is split into separate virtual links, which is sometimes referred to as network interface card (NIC) partitioning. Each of the separate virtual links may be partially managed separately allowing the bandwidth and other resources of the high-capacity network link to be allocated among the separate virtual links. However, because the separate virtual links are implemented on the physical high-capacity network link, separate management of all aspects of the virtual links may be difficult. For example, in many virtual partitioning implementations, management of link state in the separate virtual links is generally handled in aggregate based on the state of the underlying physical network link.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide improved management of virtual link state.